Part Five: Achilles Davenport
His eyes snapped open, sucking in air and his entire body stiffening in alertness. The sun, the trees, the bright colors of fall. The breath left his lungs in a soft explosion of hot air, and he relaxed. It was over. The vision was over. He sat up slowly, getting his bearings.
Somehow he had come to the edge of the river. His body was stiff, it felt as though he had been sleeping outside on the rocks, and despite that sensation he felt exhausted, ready to sleep for days. Standing, he rolled his hips and stretched his back, working the kinks out and moving to the river. Parts of the vision swept over his mind, and he shivered. The valley was doomed, his people would be destroyed if he did not stop it. He was the only thing that could stop it. He looked at the sandy riverbed, grabbing a stick and closing his eyes, focusing on the last image, the arrowhead he had followed desperately in order to stay alive. With the stick he traced it out into the watery sand, moving pebbles aside to give him room to draw. He needed to put it into reality, see it with his eyes instead of his spirit. He stared at it, realizing his experiences were real, and he an obligation. A duty, as Iottsitíson had said.
"Where, Ratonhnhaké:ton?" He looked up to see Oiá:ner walking up to him, a bundle in her hand. "Where did you see that symbol?" Never had he heard surprise in her voice before, he blinked, wondering where she had seen such a symbol before.
"The spirit showed it to me," he answered, gesturing to it. "She said I would meet a man who would show me the way forward."
"Hmm," his clan mother said, sitting down.
Ratonhnhaké:ton explained the vision the glass sphere had given him. "The Sky Goddess showed me what would happen. The atenenyarhu that attacked us from before, they hide in the clothes of the settlers, hoping to destroy us. The people from beyond the valley will return here; I've known it for a long time now. And so have you, even if you choose to ignore it. But Iottsitíson, she does not want us to be eaten by the Stone Coats."
Oiá:ner looked for a long time; her weathered eyes taking in Ratonhnhaké:ton and the symbol in the sand. "We are sworn to protect this place," she said. "Iottsitíson has always been very clear about our duty to this place. But you are right as well. The world is changing, and we cannot hide forever."
"I will not sit here and wait for our end," Ratonhnhaké:ton said. Fourteen or not, he needed to do something, anything, to protect his home and his people. Anxiety started to fill his chest again. Now more than ever he understood how vulnerable they were, and he knew that stillness was not, could not, be the answer for him. Oiá:ner was right that he had to master his fears, but stillness was not the way to do it; he needed to act, he needed to move, to go to this symbol and get the training he would need to save the only life he'd ever known. He stared at Oiá:ner, hoping she would see.
And, just like that,
"Then I release you," she said. "You may leave."
Ratonhnhaké:ton was stunned. "Why have you changed your mind?"
"Because I cannot change yours," she replied. "I have known this would be so for a long time, but still I hoped to convince you. Now I see that the Sky Goddess has plans for you, and who are we to disagree with her? Come, we must tell the others."
Word of his leaving swept like wildfire; the entire village turned out to wish him well on his adventure. Many were happy for him, glad that he had chosen to stretch his wings – a metaphor that held all new meaning for him – and to see the world. All the mothers packed his food, all the men offered their own arrows for him to take and begged he reserve them for special kills only. The children offered him shells and feathers, and Kanen'tó:kon wept openly to see his best friend leave. "I had hoped you would not choose this," he said, hugging his best friend, "But deep down I knew. I wish you well." A second wampum armband was made, weaved with the massive eagle feathers that he had harvested before the spirit journey he had taken.
Ratonhnhaké:ton was numb, going through the motions and unable to fully comprehend what was happening to him. Where would he even go? How would he find the symbol?
Leaving home was harder than he thought. He expected the journey to fill him with a sort of pride. A sense of accomplishment, the divine duty of Iottsitíson. But whatever it was that carried him through his vision soon fled in the face of leaving his home, his village, his valley, replaced by questions - and no small amount of doubt. Was he too hasty? Had he made a mistake? The others in the village - they seemed to think this was something he wanted. Something he chose to do – even Kanen'tó:kon. But it didn't feel that way to Ratonhnhaké:ton.
No, it was not a choice. It was an obligation. Because if not he, then who?
At the mouth of the valley Ratonhnhaké:ton and Oiá:ner stood alone, the others retreated back to Kanatahséton and giving the two a private moment. Anxiety of a different kind was making Ratonhnhaké:ton shift his weight, the anxiety of leaving home, of leaving Oiá:ner, his surrogate mother after the fire. She had helped him through so much, and now he was leaving her wisdom and guidance into the wide world with no idea of where to go or who to seek. There would be no turning back after this, and he wasn't certain if this decision was best, or right, or even absolute; he only knew that this was the only thing he could do.
Oiá:ner saw his fear and put a wrinkled hand on his arm, the silent gesture to practice stillness, and he took a breath and halted his motion. Once he was mastered, she pulled out a rich blue blanket; it must have taken months to dye it so deep a color, and gave it to him.
"Take this," she said. "You will find what you seek in a place to the east, where the water is so large even our great lake pales in comparison to its size. The white people call it 'ocean'. There, on a cliff, is a house of stone made from clay. It was there I saw the arrowhead you drew. It was borne by a man who will surely help you, as he once helped your mother."
That surprised him. "Ista knew this symbol?" he asked.
"Hén," Oiá:ner confirmed. "When you were a newborn there was a war between the two types of settlers, and we were drawn into it by Warraghiyagey and Ounewaterika. Our village did not participate; we are bound by our duty to protect this place. But your ista, much like you, was meant for a larger world. She walked amongst both the white men and the tribes, seeking to limit the loss of life, and men who wore this symbol helped her."
Ratonhnhaké:ton nodded. "Niá:wen," he said. "For everything you have done for me, for Kanatahséton. For..."
Oiá:ner smiled as he ran out of words to express his gratitude. "Yours is a noble heart," she said. "But I fear you expect too much. From yourself. From this world. Go. Seek your symbol. Find your way."
Travel was slow. As autumn continued to color the land the trials and paths became thick with fallen leaves, making silent travel difficult. The ground was hard with the night freeze, though, making them more than passable as compared to spring. The nights dropped below freezing, and Ratonhnhaké:ton was happy for the thick blanket Oiá:ner had given him; between it and burying himself under pine boughs or hiding under the lees of massive boulders, he was able to keep warm enough to sleep. The trail mix lasted over two weeks, and when it ran out he began hunting squirrels and hares, eating everything he could and saving the skins and bones for any repairs or needs he might have later. He was far from skilled at clothe-making, but Oiá:ner had made certain he knew enough.
He also practiced his language. Everyone in the village learned the settler tongue as children, in case they ever ran across one who wanted to trade. Their white sachem, their white chief, Warraghiyagey had insisted on it, saying it would ease misunderstandings. Ratonhnhaké:ton thought he was excellent at the language, after his inability to understand the atenenyarhu Charles Lee he made a point of working through his frustration to be able to make sentences.
"Hello," he said to himself. "My name is Ratonhnhaké:ton, and Iottsitíson told me to come here." No, that sounded too simple. If he was to seek training, then he would have to impress the owner of the arrowhead.
"Hello. A Spirit of my people has sent me on a..." he frowned, trying to think of the word, "a journey." No, he was not certain that the settlers believed in the great spirits. Their religion was different, he had been told, and he wanted to start off on the right foot.
"I wish to seek training." Yes, that would be a good start. Got right to the point. From there he could explain how he had been sent, and articulate the plight of his people. "I do not know of your beliefs," he practiced, "but a spirit of my people gave me a vision." He practiced the sentences over and over, working them into his mind, building his confidence in speaking the language, getting used to the odd sounds.
As he moved south, out of the valley, he passed through other villages of the Kanien'kehá:ka, others that were more traveled than Kanatahséton, and they helped to give him advice on how to head to the ocean. They guided him to a place called Johnstown, the home of Warraghiyagey who helped them trade with the white men. Ratonhnhaké:ton was surprised to see that many of the buildings were of wood, and much smaller than a longhouse. It was explained to him that they were called homestead, and that only one family would live in one. That was strange to Ratonhnhaké:ton, and indeed the rest of the Haudenosaunee, who gathered entire clans in their longhouses to share the fire and the fur and the blankets in winter. Communal living was a gift of Skennenrahawi, the Great Peacemaker who taught the five nations to live in harmony and to abolish cannibalism; longhouses were the metaphor of peace. The Kanien'kehá:ka were the guardians of the eastern door in the symbol of the longhouse, and Ratonhnhaké:ton found it almost beyond reason that the settlers lived such isolated lives.
He shied away from the homesteads, not ready to see just how different they were from him, and instead he turned east, his fellow tribesmen keeping him company before reaching an invisible boundary. Beyond was a river; this, he was told, is called Deerfield River, and it would lead to the much longer Quinnehtukqut – a name even the white men agreed on, though in their tongue it sounded like the Connecticut. One of the colonies was named similarly. The settlers would be in much larger numbers once he crossed the Quinnehtukqut, and he would have to be more weary.
"Why?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked.
"Because they are further removed from us," his guide told him. "Because they are removed, they do not understand, and because they do not understand, they fear."
Ratonhnhaké:ton nodded, and he parted from his people again, following the Deerfield and coming across the Quinn—the Connecticut River two days later. He stayed almost exclusively on the game trails after that, not wanting to frighten the settlers and wary himself of coming across a hidden Stone Coat. The white men were not the only ones who experienced fear, and in spite of him practicing his stillness, anxiety made Ratonhnhaké:ton sleep in trees when he was near a homestead, wrapped in his dark blue blanket and trying to disappear into the empty branches. The bright colors slowly faded as autumn passed its peak, and it slowly came so that he could not travel for more than an hour before finding another homestead, a telling sign that he must be near the ocean and its denser population. He watched them from his hide spots, seeing them shake hands in greeting or going about their work. He was beginning to think he wouldn't be able to avoid the settlers for much longer before the forest thickened once again, giving him a sense of security and safety he had not felt for almost two weeks.
At last, he crested a cliff, and beyond the tops of the trees, off in the distance, was an enormous body of water. He gawked at it, wonder filling his mind. Oiá:ner was right, this put the great lake on the other side of the Haudenosaunee look like a puddle of water. Curiosity drove him forward and, after checking the height of the cliff and spying a pile of pine boughs below, leapt over the edge. He had taken to doing that since leaving Kanatahséton; he longed to feel as he did as an eagle, wings spread wide to catch the wind, and he found the fall exhilarating, causing him to shriek like the eagle. Positive energy was in his body now, and he powered his way through a trail large enough to be called a road, leading north and likely to his destination. He pulled out the map his guide had given him, roughly sketched on charcoal, and the symbol he had added later, the arrowhead that would mark the start of his journey. He started to recite the words again, the little speech he had prepared to impress whoever it was that would train him.
As he followed the path, adjusting the bow on his back, he saw two settlers standing at a massive wooden bridge, a cart of cut logs broken off to the side. One man had hair red as fire, and the other more hair on his face than Ratonhnhaké:ton had ever seen before.
"Hello!" the man with chin hair said. At least, Ratonhnhaké:ton thought that was what he said. It was not at all like the pronunciation he had been taught.
The redhead spoke next. His words were very fast, his voice wandering up and down in a way Ratonhnhaké:ton had never experienced before. He caught a few words: native, tribe, and then something that sounded like "hirokoa." Killer people. Ratonhnhaké:ton was offended! The Haudenosaunee were not killers, the enemy nations used that term to incite them!
"Course not, Terry," the man with chin hair said. His words were slightly easier to understand. Slightly. "Iroquois ain't a tribe."
… Iroquois? Not hirokoa? That was the settler term for the Haudenosaunee, ignorantly given. Ratonhnhaké:ton considered correcting them, but the two were sharing more sentences, their pronunciation nearly incomprehensible, and all too quickly they were grabbing at each other and throwing punches.
Ratonhnhaké:ton discreetly left, uncertain what he had just witnessed.
Further up the road it twisted around a massive boulder and up a short rise, and suddenly Ratonhnhaké:ton was staring at a homestead unlike what he had seen on his travels. As Oiá:ner had said, the homestead was made of stone, and he could see it was not natural stone, meaning it was made of clay as she had said. It rose almost as high as a longhouse, maybe higher, and had a black roof of a material he could not immediately identify. Holes speckled the homestead at regular intervals, and in the holes was a material he had only seen very rarely in the valley: glass. Smoke wafted out of a column sticking out of the side of the building, and Ratonhnhaké:ton was relieved to see one sign of familiarity.
Partway up the hill was a wall made of foraged stones, and in its center were clearly cut stones to assemble into a series of steps. The center of the home held a door, and above it was a shelf sticking out over it for shade, but the young teen saw nothing stored upon the shelf. Did the home need no canoes? The top center hole was arched and on the black roof were more windows sticking out of the slant. The wilds were creeping in on the longhouse, tall pines and obvious overgrowth speckling the path up to the house, giving it a sense of age.
To the left was another structure, similar to the first but to a smaller scale: door in the center, five holes atop, four below, but with no steps or shelves or sense of majesty. To the right were more harvested stones to make a circle, covered with wood, with a pale and rope winch. Ratonhnhaké:ton had seen this on other homestead, and watched the white people draw water from it. What was the word for it, he wondered. Further down were two longhouses at right angles to each other, but instead of housing people they were clearly housed for animals, animals as large as an elk – what was the word? - horse.
The front of the homestead had four white columns, worn almost perfectly smooth, standing as decoration, and between them was a door. Remembering everything he had learned and watched on his journey, he lifted a fist and knocked. He waited, still drinking in the sight of this homestead. It was the largest he had seen yet, was it called a longhouse?
Then, all at once, he realized he was about to meet the man that would train him. Nervousness clutched at his chest, and the enormity of what was about to happen washed over him. He knocked again, suddenly worried that he had been too quiet before. The speech, the speech, what was the speech he had been rehearsing?
The door opened and a stooped, aged man appeared. To Ratonhnhaké:ton's shock, his skin was not white but rather dark, like fresh turned earth. He had not realized people could come in that color. Was he another spirit, someone in disguise?
A soft, papery voice. "What?" it demanded.
The speech! "Um..." No! Be impressive! He shifted on his feet, remembered that he had to be still, clasped his hands together. "I..." What were the words? What were the words? "I was told you could train me," he said in a rush, voice embarrassingly soft.
A pause, eyes flicking up and down.
Then,
"No."
And the door slammed in his face.
What?
… What happened?
He knocked again.
"Go away!" the dark man said behind the door.
… What? Ratonhnhaké:ton had traveled all this way, over a month of walking, avoiding settlers, sleeping in trees, following the Sky Goddess' command to be trained, to protect his people and just... just... no?
"I am not leaving!" he said, knocking again.
He stood at the door for over an hour, watching the sun set and still knocking at intervals, determined that all that he had done would not be in vain. He would be trained, he had to be trained! There was no other option, and he would not let this dark skinned man simply say no.
Well after sunset the rains came. This late in the season it was a freezing rain, cold and prone to icing on surfaces. Ratonhnhaké:ton needed a place to camp, and the wood structure that held the horse looked as good as any. He darted over to it, pulling out his blanket and wrapping it around himself. The horse flicked an ear at him in curiosity but otherwise ignored him, and Ratonhnhaké:ton settled in for the night. The Thunders rolled in, the winged storm spirits with the heads of turkeys dancing in the sky. It heartened Ratonhnhaké:ton; the Thunders were honorable and fair, and if they were here, he was convinced it was because they were giving the fourteen-year-old their blessing, reassuring him he was in the right place. The noise lulled him to sleep.
He began knocking again the next morning with the sunrise, pounding his fist against the door and feeling slightly satisfied when he heard noise above him, the sounds of a man startled awake. He worked at it for two hours before wondering if there was another way inside. He circled the homestead, uncertain how the mechanisms blocking the holes worked at a glance and resolving to study them further later. At the back of the house was another door, again perfectly centered, and he began knocking on that.
"Please," he said, wondering if words would help. "All I ask is a moment of your time."
He heard a noise above him, and his eyes snapped up to see the man settling to lean against the hole, window, that was the word.
"I apologize if I've been unclear - or otherwise confused you with my words, it was never my intention to mislead." Ratonhnhaké:ton struggled to mentally translate the words fast enough, but the man was speaking just slowly enough that he could follow. "So let me try to clarify: get the hell of my land!"
Utterly fed up, Ratonhnhaké:ton replied in kind: "I'm coming up!"
He could hear no sound inside the longhouse, and so he began circling the longhouse again. On the north side were more columns, and a shelf that stored nothing on top of it. The climb was easy, he almost glided up with the easy handholds of the brick and above there was another door. He grabbed it, expecting it to just open, but it would not turn fully, and he was left to shake the infernal thing, frustration driving him to yank and pull and tug. "Just hear me out!" he shouted. "What are you so afraid of?"
He was not certain if that was what this man was feeling, but the old man was clearly feeling something in order to so stubbornly and adamantly deny even talking to Ratonhnhaké:ton. What other emotion could it be? Settlers this far east were wary of natives because they did not interact with them; Ratonhnhaké:ton would prove to this man that there was nothing to be afraid of, and-
The door suddenly jerked out of his hands, and the old man stepped out, stooped and hard to see under the wide brim of his hat.
"Afraid?" the old man growled, his words low and angry and dangerous. Ratonhnhaké:ton startled to see such a sudden reaction after so many hours of quiet. "You think I'm afraid of anything," he growled, reaching out and with his walking stick and yanking Ratonhnhaké:ton right off his feet, "least of all, a self-important little scab like you?!" The stick pressed up against his next, a pressure that flashed him back to when he was six, when the Stone Coat Charles Lee had nearly killed him. Air caught in his lungs, and for a moment blind panic overtook him. Struggling, he practiced stillness.
"Oh, you might dream of being a hero," the man said. Ratonhnhaké:ton had never heard the word hero before, what did it mean? "Of riding to rescues, of saving the world - but stay this course and the only thing you're going to be is dead."
The moment hung in the air, thick and heavy with something Ratonhnhaké:ton could not identify. An emotion played on the old man's face, deep and dark. At last he pulled his stick back, righting it and leaning his weight on it. "The world's moved on, boy," he said. "Best you do too."
And like a wisp of smoke he was gone, slamming the door again.
Ratonhnhaké:ton was at a loss. Failure was not an option. Iottsitíson had said that if he stayed this course, it would bring a negative outcome. Negative meant the absolute destruction of his people by the atenenyarhu. By Charles Lee.
"I will not leave!" he shouted. "Do you hear me? I am never leaving!"
He spent the rest of the day assaulting the house, knocking on doors and windows, examined the roof and sticking his head into the smoke stack to see if there was a way in that way. At noon he climbed a tree, glaring at the house and nibbling on his trail mix before trying again. But the old man did not reply to his petitions again, fully expecting to just wait him out.
Just wait, old man. Ratonhnhaké:ton would not be defeated so easily. He would train him, he had to.
That night, Ratonhnhaké:ton slept with the horse again, the Thunders giving him encouragement as he burrowed into his blanket. Sleep was deep from the fatigue of the day, but in what felt like a blink of an eye his senses alerted him to wake. Through the rain he saw the silhouettes of men, their coats covered in something that let the rain sweep off them.
"He's a square toes," one of them was saying. "This'll be easy."
"That's what you said last time and I wound up with a dead 'orse an a dark eye." A glare was shared, before the second man spoke again in his strange accent. "You hear 'im before? Sayin' 'e 'as no master but 'imself. What a load of fee, faw, fum. If he ain't no master, guess he's ours to do wit as we please."
Ratonhnhaké:ton stepped forward, uncertain what was going on.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Both men startled at his silent approach, and the first man gave a cold, hard look. "No one you need concern yourself with, little breeches."
"Best cut 'fore something bad 'appens," said the second.
Cut? Did he mean leave? Leave? When the man to train him had yet to accept him? His answer was immediate. "No."
"Can't say we didn't warn ya."
And that was how the fight started. Ratonhnhaké:ton was startled by the first swing, he ducked it more from instinct that any real skill, and he realized these men were in his way, preventing him from getting his training. After two days of refusal and dismissal, something broke in Ratonhnhaké:ton, and he let out a short, guttural cry of anger before launching himself at the two men. Pulling out his stone tamahac he swung it down at an angle, chopping into one of the man's shoulders and causing a startled cry before he yanked it out, blood spraying in the rain, and chopping again and again. He knew very little after that, his anxiety turning to anger and, without the stillness that Oiá:ner had taught him, it turned into brutal violence. All he understood was that these men were in the way, and he would remove them by whatever means necessary.
The first was easy to overcome by the surprise of his violence, the second pulled out a war club of some kind and Ratonhnhaké:ton swatted it aside, driving a shoulder into the man's chest and following up with an elbow and then a chop with his tamahac, breaking the ribcage and setting out a stream of blood. He kicked the man off his hatchet and turned to see a third man lunging at him with a stick of metal and wood. Musket.
The word pulled him out of his berserk rage and he remembered all too clearly the terror of that weapon. He dodged around it, wary, and caught the next swing with his tamahac and deflected it to the side, grabbing at the coat of the man – it was covered in wax, how clever – and swung him over his shoulder, pounding him into the hard mud as the rain became particularly heavy.
He stood over the third man, panting and a little lightheaded that he had just done that. Stillness. He practiced stillness until calm returned to him, and he realized these men were not just obstacles in his way, but these men had intended ill on the old man on the hill; were they atenenyarhu? Stone Coats? He needed answers.
"Why are you here?" he asked. "What do you want?"
Eyes glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, and Ratonhnhaké:ton started to turn when stars burst from his eyes and he staggered to the side, the blow followed by a blunt impact to his midsection, driving all air out of him and sending him careening into the icy mud. A fourth man, one Ratonhnhaké:ton had not seen, gazed down at him with an evil sneer. "Working for the old man, eh?" he grunted, and he lifted a club, ready to strike.
But, curiously, he did nothing, instead stiffening, a dark shadow covering his hand and a squelching sound bleeding through the torrent of rain. The man fell, and behind him was the old man on the hill. He stood in the mud, a small knife in his hand, and the Thunders rejoiced over his head, a dance of lightening making the night look as day, and for the first time Ratonhnhaké:ton realized that training was not an abstract, vague word; it was exactly what this man had done, the skill in which he had done it, and the ease of which he made it look. This man was a master of all things.
The dark skinned man reached down and offered a hand. Ratonhnhaké:ton belatedly pulled a shaky hand out of the mud and took it. Even in his age, the man had strength, hoisted him up with ease.
He... he had saved Ratonhnhaké:ton's life.
"Niá:..." he stopped, corrected himself. "Thank you."
The man glanced at the four bodies at his feet, made a face. "Clean this up," he said, his voice papery. He shook his head. "Then, I suppose we should talk..."
And without another word he hobbled his way back up the hill and into the homestead.
Ratonhnhaké:ton stood in the rain, numb and a little dazed, unable to fully process what had happened. Had... had the Thunders presented these men so that Ratonhnhaké:ton could gain access to the old man? Or was it the hand of the Sky Goddess? Or something else altogether? He looked down at the corpses, realized belatedly that these had been living men, and in his blind rage he had killed two of them, and two more were downed by the old man. All the trail mix left his body in one massive fit of coughing, realization sickening him almost to senselessness. Wiping his mouth, he looked up to the black night sky, rain still coming down, and realized for the first time how difficult the path was that he was about to walk.
For a split second he thought of going back to his valley, to shy away from this task. But the question followed him: if he did not take this dark trail, who would? Iottsitíson had said he was special, that this was his duty. He could not turn away from it, no matter how hard it would be.
Taking a breath, he stood and looked for a shovel.
It took over two hours, the shallow graves difficult to dig in half frozen earth, even softened by the cold rain. He laid them behind a tall pine, south of the homestead, and when he was done he looked out over the graves he had dug and bowed his head, uncertain what ritual he was supposed to follow for white men. All he could do was apologize in his native tongue, and then he moved to the house.
Shivering with the cold, he rubbed his muddy hands up and down his arms, moving to the only light in the house: the hearth. He hoped to dry and warm there, and the old man sat there, waiting for him. He gestured to a chair and Ratonhnhaké:ton sat heavily – so heavily, in fact, that the entire thing broke under his weight and he collapsed into a heap on the ground. It startled him to more alertness, and he scrambled to his feet, uncertain. He had just broken something of the old man's... would this give him trouble?
Hastily, he apologized. "Sorry."
"Not your fault," the old man said with a simple gesture. "This whole place is ready to come down. Goddamn miracle it hasn't already." The fourteen-year-old sagged in relief. "Anyway, who are you?"
"My name is Ratonhnhaké:ton."
A pause, and then, "Right." The old man shifted his weight. "Well, I'm not even going to try and pronounce that." For some reason, that hurt to hear, but Ratonhnhaké:ton had his own difficulties with settler names, perhaps the old man would use it once he was used to it. "Now tell me why you're here."
Yes! The explanation! He shuffled through his things, pulling out the map and the arrowhead. "I was told to seek this symbol," he said, handing it over to the old man. He did not blink, did not frown, did not show any surprise to see the stylized arrowhead, instead took the paper and looked up to Ratonhnhaké:ton, completely closed off.
"Do you even know what that symbol represents? Or what it is you're asking for?"
"... No," he admitted, a shiver running down his spine. He rubbed his arms again and adjusted the bow on his back. A brief twitch in the old dark man's eye spurned Ratonhnhaké:ton to explain, to try and convince this man to training after two days of refusal. "The spirit said that," he started, "that I've -" No, none of this sounded right, he was supposed to sound articulate, fluent, impressive! Anxiety started to bleed into him, his head hurt and he didn't know what to do.
The old man held up a hand, however, stopping him from saying more.
"These 'spirits' of yours have been harassing the Assassins for centuries. Ever since Ezio uncorked the bottle." Ratonhnhaké:ton's eyes widened, words he had never heard before being used. Assassin? Ezio? They were unlike anything he had heard before, and he feared losing track of the conversation. The old man saw his nervousness and leaned back, pausing and saying something else instead: "Ah," he said, "but you don't even know what an Assassin is, do you?"
Ratonhnhaké:ton shook his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, cold to the bone.
"Well," he said with a sigh, "best settle in, then. I've got a story to tell and it's going to take a while to get it all out."
Ratonhnhaké:ton pulled out another chair, sat in it more gingerly, and they began to talk.
The fourteen-year-old learned the hard way that he was not nearly as fluent in the settler language as he originally thought. The old man wanted his story first, and not just the tale of the Sky Goddess, he wanted Ratonhnhaké:ton's entire life history. Ratonhnhaké:ton spoke of his mother, what little he knew of her before he was born, the name of his father which had caused the old man's eyes to tighten, the atenenyarhu Charles Lee and the men with him, the destruction of Kanatahséton, and the clear sphere of glass that had taken him to Iottsitíson and the vision she had granted him. Several of the words he wanted to use he did not know how to say in the white man's tongue, and he frustrated himself as he tried to explain.
The old man, in turn, had his own difficulty. His story was one that lasted over six hundred years, with holy wars and swaths of the world that Ratonhnhaké:ton could not even comprehend. The word assassin was explained: a man or woman that killed people. But that was not the complete explanation, only the one that common people understood. The old man said that assassin meant a man or woman who killed people who lifted themselves above others and held humanity in contempt. Assassins held something called a creed, a set of rules that guided them in all that they did. They fought against templar, men and women who sought to see the world ruled by them, guiding the course of humanity according to their own designs. It was a story unlike any Ratonhnhaké:ton had ever heard before. It was more than just legends and myths, it was true events, this man had read the accounts of the assassin Ezio, his name meaning eagle.
When Ratonhnhaké:ton heard that he knew he was on the right path. He was an eagle, his spirit journey had showed him as much, and now he was with a tribe that lauded eagles. The old man moved on to explain politics, renaissance and borgia and papacy, words that meant nothing to Ratonhnhaké:ton and making him frustrated to understand. There were too many words sometimes, and the young teen had to hold his throbbing head as he struggled to absorb them all. Other times he spoke of visions, the spirits of old visiting people like Ezio, leaving messages and warning, giving them duties just as the Sky Goddess had given him one. For the first time since the fire, Ratonhnhaké:ton felt something resembling security, safety. He was in the company of a man who knew how to fight the Stone Coats, and in time he, too, would learn how to fight and defeat them. Since leaving the valley, Ratonhnhaké:ton felt his decision had been the right one.
"... and so this is why the Assassins have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of the Templars. Because if they succeed - your spirit's visions will become reality."
Ratonhnhaké:ton nodded. "Then I will stop them," he said. It was his duty.
"Oh, I have no doubt you'll try," the old man said, his tone sardonic. Ratonhnhaké:ton frowned; had he said something wrong? "Come on," he was saying, "I've something to show you. Careful. Wasn't a joke when I said this place was coming apart."
The old man moved away from the fire, standing with only some difficulty and moving into the shadows. Ratonhnhaké:ton stood to follow; the movement waking him up slightly after the long and grueling conversation. He could make out few details, but this was the second time the man had demurred over the state of his home.
"Why don't you repair it?" he asked.
"What's the point?" the old man countered. "Besides I don't have materials for the job."
He shrugged in the darkness. "So buy them."
That caused the old man to pause, turning around and his black silhouette glaring up at the teen. "Look at me," he said, his voice bitter and angry and pained all at once. "You think I can just march into some store, purse full of pounds, and go shopping?"
… Huh?
"Yes," Ratonhnhaké:ton answered. "Why not?"
A heavy sigh. "So naive," the old man muttered, shuffling down the hall. His walking stick, cane, lifted up and pulled at a candle that was attached to the wall. A soft clicking sound could be heard, and the old man pushed at the wall, and to Ratonhnhaké:ton's amazement it opened, revealing steps down into the ground. He followed in awe, watching as the old man began to light candles, and deep under the homestead was a room unlike anything Ratonhnhaké:ton had seen before.
At the base of the steps was more stone creating a floor, and further in was a circle of earth. Beyond was a rack of some kind, empty of whatever it was to hold. To the right, wood spread out to create a second floor, a table put up against the wall, with wood and cloth covering the vertical surface. A cabinet was there, as was a stool and tools of some kind, and this seemed to be only the beginning, Ratonhnhaké:ton could see the room opened up further around a corner.
What drew his eye the most, however, was a settler coat resting on tightly wrapped straw on a pole, looking almost as a man standing in the center of the circle. It was white, like the eagle feathers on his wampum armbands, with blue trim that reminded him of his blanket upstairs. At its feet was a box, plain and unadorned, but then Oiá:ner's box had looked similarly. Was another sphere in it? He bent down to look.
All at once the walking stick slapped at his hands; the old man was the most silent hunter Ratonhnhaké:ton had ever met, and his alertness jolted again as he realized what he was doing. "Don't think you can just come in here, throw those on and call yourself an Assassin."
Ratonhnhaké:ton felt chastised, backing up and shifting his weight again. He had upset a man who had taken over two days to talk to him, the last thing he needed was to make the man go back on his decision before he even agreed to the training. He stuttered, still chilled and trying to find the right words to say.
"I... did not..." he worried his hands, trying again. "I would never presume..."
Another sigh. "That's alright," the old man said. "I know they've a certain allure."
Ratonhnhaké:ton said nothing, keeping his gaze to the floor, afraid of doing something else wrong. He practiced stillness.
"... Very well," the old man said, resignation in his voice. "I'll train you. Then we'll know if you've the right to wear those robes."
Relief flooded through Ratonhnhaké:ton, satisfied that he had at last been accepted by this cantankerous old man. "Thank you," he said, and then immediately stumbled when he realized he did not know this man's name. "Uh..."
"Name's Achilles," the old man replied, taking his walking stick and patting the back of his foot. "Come on, then. We've work to do."
The old man, Achilles, moved to one of the tables, gesturing with his walking stick that Ratonhnhaké:ton remove the wood boards leaning on it. He did so, and saw an incredible series of likenesses cast in frames before him. His eyes snapped to the atenenyarhu, the Stone Coat Charles Lee, and his mind jolted back to when he was six, the sensation of hands around his neck, the vitriol of a language he did not yet understand, the hatred in those eyes of stone, before he ate his village. These were the faces the Sky Goddess had shown him in the vision, these were the ones who wanted the Sanctuary, whatever that was, and sought to destroy his people.
"What do the Templars want?" he asked slowly, staring intently at all of the faces.
"What they've always wanted:" Achilles said. "Control. They see an opportunity in the colonies. A chance for new beginnings, unfettered by the chaos of the past. This is why they back the British. Here they have a chance to illustrate the merits of their beliefs: A people in service to the principles of order and structure."
A people in service...
He nodded. "I have seen what is to come if they succeed. They have to die, don't they? All of them." He looked to the other likeness, the one that he had never seen before but recognized all the same. He shared a jaw, a nose, with that face, and now at last he understood why his mother had been hurt by that man. By Haytham Kenway. If the others had to die, as was the way of the assassin, then so did he. "Even my father."
"Especially your father," Achilles said. "He's the one holding the whole thing together. Come, it must be past two in the morning. We'll rest and get a fresh start in the morning."
That night Ratonhnhaké:ton dreamt of kanontsistóntie, undead flying heads created from violent murder, and when he woke he realized that in his rush to begin his journey he had not taken a dream catcher with him. Suddenly frightened, he left the brick longhouse and scoured the surrounding woods for materials, returning just after dawn to the Old Man – to Achilles standing at the base of the stairs.
He sighed. "And here I thought I'd finally chased you off," he muttered.
"I am sorry," Ratonhnhaké:ton said quickly. "It is just... I had a bad dream, and I realized-"
"No assassin ever has good dreams, boy," the dark skinned man replied. "I've yet to see a dream catcher manage to keep bad dreams away."
Ratonhnhaké:ton blinked, surprised. "You know what that is?"
"I know a lot of things," Achilles replied. "Some of which I will teach you. When you feel like getting around to it."
And so he trained. The first two days were a rigorous assessment of what he could do physically; Achilles made him run and climb for hours on end, and asked the boy to go through basic forms of fighting. He said nothing, did not blink or otherwise react to what Ratonhnhaké:ton did. By the end he simply said, "Well, there's certainly room for improvement."
Mornings were relegated to physical work: running, climbing, fighting, falling, much to Ratonhnhaké:ton's regret. There seemed to be more falling than anything else, Achilles was adamant the fourteen-year-old learn how to absorb the energy of a fall from any height, any angle, any way possible, and was more than happy to use his wealth of stealth to sneak up on Ratonhnhaké:ton at the most inopportune moments, pulling his weight out from under him with simple touches or nudges. Fighting forms were gone over under the homestead, the root cellar. The coat became Ratonhnhaké:ton's target, how to hit, how to duck, how to dodge and roll and swept into another attack. Ratonhnhaké:ton learned the hard way that he was not the master of his body that he thought he was, and Achilles seemed to take dark pleasure in reminding him of that over and over and over again.
And for every lesson that concerned the body, there were two that concerned the mind. Language was the first priority. Every night Ratonhnhaké:ton was forced to read aloud from a book, Poor Richard's Almanac; and Achilles corrected his pronunciation (constantly!) and helped work the boy through difficult words. With infinite patience he answered questions Ratonhnhaké:ton had, defining words and explaining oddities of settler – european – culture.
Some of it Ratonhnhaké:ton knew; the year was split into chunks called months, and each month had alternating days, and the days were split into groups of seven called weeks. It had never really meant much to Ratonhnhaké:ton, but Achilles showed him how the Europeans planned their years, their very lives, around the calendar. Even then, the boy didn't really get it until he told Achilles that he had always been told his birthday was on April fourth, and Achilles pointed it out on a calendar, and Ratonhnhaké:ton could count how many days and weeks and months were left until his birthday.
As winter swept in and his literacy and fluency improved, simple reading moved on to other things. Philosophy. Logic. The arts... It was important, Achilles emphasized, that Ratonhnhaké:ton understand the white man's mind, the culture that lead them to decisions that were so baffling to Ratonhnhaké:ton as a Kanien'kehá:ka. Despite his utter inability to speak in Ratonhnhaké:ton's or any other native language, Achilles had a robust understanding of their culture and traditions, and that was when Ratonhnhaké:ton realized that assassins were more than just white men; they were anyone.
Achilles taught most often of the Assassins and Templars. Their structures, origins, and purpose. Centuries of history condensed into weeks. The Templars saw themselves as shepherds, they saw the ways of humanity and decided to simply let it be, so long as they, the Templars, were special and above the rest, and only they were wise enough to guide humanity to a plan only they could see. Ratonhnhaké:ton saw immediately the flaw of that line of thinking: no man or woman was above anyone else. Clan mothers chose Clan chiefs who lead debates at the Haudenosaunee meetings until an answer was arrived at; through deliberation and consideration. Everyone played a part in the running of the Haudenosaunee, and to say one tribe was better than the others and make all the decisions was absurdity. Achilles nodded at Ratonhnhaké:ton's observation, but said that life in Europe was not so harmonized, and the brutal history he articulated emphasized the point.
Ratonhnhaké:ton told him of the men who had burned his village. Of Charles Lee and his promise to him, of the Stone Coats. Achilles explained that legends of old were not legend, nor were they truth. There was, before time was counted, a civilization that simply came... before. Humanity was created in their image and the legends of old were created to explain this first civilization. The Sky Goddess that Ratonhnhaké:ton had seen in his spirit vision could also be Minerva, an old goddess of the... what was the word?... the greeks. They were not all powerful as people believed, just more advanced. Such talks left Ratonhnhaké:ton with headaches and uncertain of the truth of anything. Achilles said that was no surprise, and that many assassins were deeply religious in spite of their increased knowledge.
In paltry detail, Achilles spoke of the fall of the assassins in the colonies during what was called the French and Indian War. It was the war between the British and the French – two countries in Europe that had colonies here and often fought with each other. He gave little detail, only just enough to get the point across, and Ratonhnhaké:ton learned of how the Templars, of how Charles Lee and his father had systematically destroyed the assassins. He rather got the impression that Achilles was trying to scare him away, but the story only made Ratonhnhaké:ton more determined. Others had failed, the path was difficult, but he would do it.
He would do it simply because he had to, because it was the only way to protect his home and make it safe again, to remove the anxiety that so constantly plagued him.
Snow stretched over the land, and one year ended and another began, 1770. As the second month began, Ratonhnhaké:ton's fluency and literacy had greatly improved, and though his head was swimming with details he was beginning to grasp the depth of the task that had been laid before him. Every morning he rose at dawn and ran as far as his body would take him from the property, marking his progress with notches in trees and taking some small pride in how much further he could run now. Walking back he practiced other exercises; focusing not on his legs and endurance but on his abdomen and his arms, building flexibility and agility. He passed the two men with strange accents, still camped by the bridge, their logs slowly changing into other shapes. Once he was back at the homestead, he climbed trees and hung from them for as long as possible. First it was with pines and maples, their sap helping him stay in place, but now he hung from oak and hickory, seeing how long his grip could last without aid. Breakfast came midmorning, just about when his stomach was complaining, and he ate with Achilles in the kitchen.
That had been its own experience, learning how to use the myriad of settler eating utensils properly. That had been a long day, Achilles refusing to feed him until he could maneuver his large hands around the tiny implements of metal, name what they were and what they did, and explain how a five course meal was served. That was back in November, but now he could use forks and spoons without misunderstanding, and he cut up his squash and maize and discovered his enjoyment of boiled eggs.
After breakfast was fighting in the root cellar, Achilles now with him and taking him through forms, slowly at first but with gradual speed. This was more challenging than the run and exercises, because the old man constantly snuck upon Ratonhnhaké:ton as he was doing his training to catch him unawares.
"Your single-minded focus will be the death of you," the old man often said. "An Assassin must not only have his goal in mind, but also an awareness of the world around him; his senses must be that of an eagle, to absorb everything at a glance and have the intelligence and level of perception to see what needs to be done, not what you want to do."
"Eagle?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked; the word was familiar but he did not remember it immediately.
"Yes, a giant bird of prey. A bald eagle sits in the back room, I've seen you stare at it."
Ratonhnhaké:ton thought on that after lunch, when Achilles had him practice reading and writing letters and news sheets, quizzing him on higher understanding and pressing him hard to see the meaning beneath the words, another skill Ratonhnhaké:ton seemed to lack. "You take their words as truth, don't. Newspapers are tools for propaganda, to spread one-sided messages. An assassin must see past these harangues and understand the truth hidden behind the bluster." After supper he was reading the almanac again, part of his mind wondering about eagles and hidden truths and focus when all at once if felt as though a part of his mind awakened. He heard an eagle shriek, not outside but somewhere in his mind, and all at once he was aware of everything. It startled him into quiet, and he stared hard at the words, aware that Achilles was sitting across from him in the hearth, staring at him in anticipation, aware that there were birds tapping at the window behind him, aware that the scent of wood was in the air, as well as smoke from the fire and candles. Outside he heard wind, there would be a storm tonight. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before...
Except his mind immediately jumped to his spirit journey. When he was an eagle, he had felt exactly like this. His breath quickened, and all at once the sensation disappeared, his mind closed, and all was as it was before.
His eyes snapped to Achilles.
"Well?" the old man asked.
"Something..." he frowned, swallowed hard, trying to find the words. "The world changed... or perhaps I changed... there was an eagle... my mind... I could see..."
Achilles leaned back in his chair, nodded, hand playing with his cane. "I wondered if you had the gift," he said. "The hunters of your people have the mental focus to bring it about. That, boy, is what many of the assassins called eagle vision. It is a rare gift, even among the most highly trained of us, and it permits us to see the world as no one else can." Slowly, stiffly, he stood. "Now we need to train you to access that special sight at will. Ezio wrote a great deal about it, but he was a terrible writer. Shao Jun was more articulate, but Chinese is not my specialty."
And so his schedule changed again. Before fighting every morning after breakfast, Achilles took him through a series of breathing exercises, teaching him stillness in a way Oiá:ner could never dream of. He opened his mind a peace at a time, focusing on how it felt and listening for eagles.
By the end of February, Ratonhnhaké:ton felt he had improved greatly, but Achilles was less complimentary.
"You've only just started your training," he said, "You're hardly ready to be called a novice, let alone an assassin, but perhaps now you might survive a trip to the world of the colonies. Now, tell me why the death of Christopher Seider in the Boston Gazette is an omen of bad things to come."
Ratonhnhaké:ton frowned, uncertain. "He was eleven years old," he said. "The death of a child is always sad. Will the parents begin a mourning war?"
"No," Achilles replied, "The colonies don't make a habit of kidnapping children to recoup their losses. And, more importantly, you'll learn that children are as much a commodity as land; they are weighed by how much they can earn rather than who they are."
"I do not understand."
"I don't expect you to," Achilles said. "That is something only experience can teach."
A week and a half later, when Ratonhnhaké:ton had finished breakfast and entered the root cellar to begin fighting, the old man was nowhere to be found. Frowning, he climbed the stairs and searched the house before exiting outside. Achilles was with the horse at the stables, hitching the animal up to an open wooden box on wheels – what was the word? Wagon.
"Good morning," Achilles said simply.
"To you as well," Ratonhnhaké:ton answered. "You taking a trip?"
"I've decided to do something about the house. And you're going to help me. Get in."
With ease Ratonhnhaké:ton hopped up into the contraption, and with a flick of the leather straps, the reins, they began riding off the property. Crossing the bridge, Achilles gave a hard look at the two strange speakers and their half made building. "Do they even know this land is already owned?" he muttered in perennial bad temper. Ratonhnhaké:ton had to remind himself that land here was not communal, land was meant for one person instead of everyone, and that the two strange speakers living on Achilles' land was probably wrong.
"What is it they are doing?" Ratonhnhaké:ton asked. "And why is it wrong?"
But the old man said nothing, instead continuing the ride south. After over two hours of driving, he finally explained. "We're going to Boston," he said. "It's the largest city in this colony, and I can't think of a better place to get the supplies we need for the house. It's also some forty miles from here, so it will take almost three days to get there with a wagon."
"Why do we need a wagon?"
"Because many of the supplies will be big and impossible to carry otherwise. Hammers and nails to fix the dining room are one thing, ordering new shudders for the windows or replacement bricks for the facade are something else. There's also flour and grain and salt and sugar, since I'm now feeding for a boy that eats enough for three."
"I am sorry."
"Don't be," Achilles said. "Every novice and apprentice that ever graced an assassin's doors did the same thing. I rather loath traveling in winter; I thought I had enough to last me through, but sometimes life just... gets in the way."
They passed many homesteads along the well-travelled road, farms taking up a hill, or another cart making a similar errand. They spent the night in a town called Salem. Achilles secured them lodgings in an inn, the keepers looking at both of them with suspicion. Training was not to be ignored, however, and Ratonhnhaké:ton was once again reading Poor Richard's Almanac before going to bed. They left at dawn the next morning and stopped again in Charlestown, a city north of the isthmus that Boston lay on, and Connor looked out over the water to see something he had never seen before.
"Don't stare," Achilles hissed, snapping his cane into the teen's ribs.
"Sorry," Ratonhnhaké:ton said quickly.
"Come on," the old man said, "We'll need lodging."
That night Achilles set Ratonhnhaké:ton down to talk.
"I've tried to prepare you for this but it's time I made a few things clear," he said, stretching his feet out awkwardly to the hearth. "I've seen it happen before with apprentices that come from tribes such as yours, the shock of a different culture is going to be phenomenal."
"That city," Ratonhnhaké:ton said, wide eyed, trying to describe the sight. "It is incredible. Even the meetings with the Haudenosaunee council of chiefs, they do not reach such size or number. The sheer number of homesteads is staggering. How will it look when we are finally in such a place? How will it sound? How will it look?" He took a breath, something in his chest that wasn't anxiety bubbling up. "How many people live there? After so many conversations of how the Europeans fight amongst each other I..." he frowned, trying to find the right word, "I cannot reconcile what you have said with how so many people must be living in harmony on that city."
"In that city," Achilles corrected. "And you don't even know the half of it. Anyone can think that, I thought that upon a time. These days I much prefer the quiet of the countryside."
"But there is so much life there," Ratonhnhaké:ton countered. "As a child we were told that homesteads were built from the bones of my people that were eaten. I had always pictured large, empty longhouses of stone, devoid of feeling. Cold. But that sight..."
"... naive..." escaped under Achilles breath, a word Ratonhnhaké:ton had heard many times from the old man but whose definition was never explained. "Listen," the dark skinned man said instead. "You're going to need a new name. I'm not the only one who has a poor ability to pronounce native languages. Your skin is fair enough that you might pass for one with Spanish or Italian blood. Better to be thought a Spaniard than a Native. And both are better still than I."
"That is not true," Ratonhnhaké:ton said, surprised that the Old Man had ranked himself so low.
Something ghosted over Achilles' face. A smile? But the permanent frown was there and the old man sighed. "What's true and what is aren't always the same," he said. "I have not yet told you all facets of the colonies, but I'm certain many will be discovered tomorrow. For now simply take my word that you should be considered a Spaniard. You need a name."
"What would you call me, then?"
A very long pause drew out, Achilles thinking with his face completely closed off. "Connor," he said finally. "Yes. That will be your name."
The next morning they rode around the edge of the water, called the Back Bay, and slowly turned north and up the isthmus; they passed through a structure Achilles called Southgate, and traveled up the narrow stretch of land called the Boston Neck, and soon they were in the city proper.
Whatever Ratonhnhaké:ton – no, Connor – thought when he saw the city from across the bay, it was nothing compared to being inside it. The buildings stretched on for eternity; instead of being longhouses they seemed to be tall houses, they stretched up and up, three or four stories. Everything was brick and stone and wood, houses clustered around each other in loose circles, the land they encircled used as common land for animals to graze, or a safe place to hang laundry to dry, or wells for pulling water. One massive hill was named by Achilles as Boston Commons, the hill filled with cows and sheep and other farm animals. Streets slowly changed from dirt to brick – Ratonhnhaké:ton had never thought of such an innovation, and seeing the roads flatter and smoother was immediately felt with the reduced bouncing of the cart. Poking up from the already tall houses were massive spires of human construction, and Achilles had to explain that most of them were churches, places for men and women to congregate and worship their spirits.
Ratonhn – Connor saw dogs and cats and sheep and rats and pigs and all assortments of animals dodging the legs of hundreds, thousands of people. Horses walked up and down the streets, navigating droppings just as the people did, and between the barks and meows and grunts and the consistent and myriad sources of conversation, it all blurred together to a general hum of activity that Ratonhnhaké:ton had never heard before. Noise was everywhere, disjointed, unharmonized, and yet strangely unified. The smell of the city was sharp, with the animal droppings everywhere, old food that had gone bad, and several shops had strange odors leaking out whenever a door was opened. And given the cold, Connor just knew it would be worse in the summer heat. Every avenue seemed to break off to hidden alleys and side streets, children ran up and down, playing in the March snow, throwing snowballs and shrieking as the cold sifted between their clothes. Everyone was dressed strangely, women in long, multi-layered skirts and dresses, shawls, and curious things that covered their hair. Bonnets, Achilles explained, it was considered improper for women to expose something as alluring as their hair, sinful. Ratonhnhaké:ton didn't understand that at all but accepted that it was custom. Men wore leggings that were not deerskin, and ended at their knees instead of their ankles, white stockings often covering the rest. Coats were of any color imaginable, with thick piping and cuffs and boarders that marked their wealth and station. Hats were triangles, and hair was pulled back into simple tails, and many times people wore snow in their hair.
"Not snow," Achilles corrected. "Powdered wigs. It's a sign of office usually. And stop staring."
"Sorry," Ratonhnhaké:ton said again, trying to lower his eyes but unable to do so.
They moved about the streets and Ratonhnhaké:ton felt he could walk the streets for days and not know even half its wonders.
Dark skin caught his eye and he looked to see a series of people who looked like Achilles being lead up to a platform of some kind, people crowded around and shouting things so quickly that the young teen could not understand what was going on. He turned to see the Old Man leveling a long, hard stare, his normally sour face replaced with something much darker before looking away without even a word, radiating the message that Ratonhnhaké:ton not ask what he had just seen.
It was late afternoon by the time they had at last arrived.
"Now, Connor," Achilles said, turning but Ratonhnhaké:ton was turned around, watching a woman holding something over her head and trying to determine what it was, what the word was. "Connor," Achilles tried again, and Ratonhnhaké:ton looked around to see whom the old man was referring to.
Then the cane snapped over his head. "Connor."
Oh. Right.
"Sorry," he said, wincing and rubbing the sore spot on his head. He needed to work on his eagle to prevent that from always happening.
"Connor," Achilles said again, hoping repetition would drill the name into Ratonhnhaké:ton's – into Connor's head. "Do you see that building there?" he asked, pointing to a massive building of brick and white trim, "That is the State House. Can you remember that?"
"Yes," Ra—Connor said.
"Good. You are to tell the supplier that the wagon is by the State House. You're to buy the items on this list. Tell them where the carriage is - and they'll see that's it loaded. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Good. Look for a sign that says 'General Store.' It will be near the water. I've done business there before; tell them that you're my new apprentice and that the wagon is by the State House. Can you remember all of that?"
"Yes," Ratonhnhaké:ton said, insulted by all of the reminders.
"Good. Keep your eyes and your ears open. Gossip is a great source of information. If you can survive something as simple as this supply run, there just might be hope for you. Go on, now."
Ratonhnhaké:ton clenched his jaw, put out by the Old Man's lack of faith in him, but he hopped easily off the wagon and began his task. As time grew on, however, he began to realize how difficult it was because of how little information Achilles had given him. How was he to know what was a store and what was not? Who did he ask, or was that too obvious? Would someone learn he was not a European if he asked how to determine what a store was? He pulled the borrowed, ill-fitted coat Achilles had given him around his broad shoulders and took a deep breath of cold air. He could do this; he could figure out where to go. He stood still, telling himself over and over again, mentally preparing himself for his assignment, until the anxiety in his chest slowly bled away.
Focused now, he thought he heard a faint eagle shriek, in the echoes of his mind.
Calmer, he opened his eyes and looked around. Achilles had said something about a sign, and there were no signs on the street he was on. The Old Man had also spoken of being by the water, and he did not see the ocean immediately. Those two conditions needed to be met, first. Taking a deep breath, he slowly walked east, rubbing his hands together in the cold and darting his eyes everywhere. In the span of ten minutes he realized he could recognize the difference between a shop and the other buildings; shops had glass windows that showed off their products and painted signs. That gave him a smidgen of confidence, and when he began seeing the ocean between buildings he focused his eyes more.
As he looked for a sign that said "General Store," he listened to a conversation going on with a collection of men at a corner.
"Can you believe it? That customs man killed a little boy! He was only eleven. The soldiers have been here two years, and I don't care if half the forces left last year, they're nothing but a menace."
"If I find a lobsterback alone I'll give him a piece of my mind."
"Did you read the latest Journal of Occurences? Another trooper raped a girl. No one's been arrested."
"I don't read that rag, for a 'factual' paper it's a load of malarkey."
"I grow tired of this. It seems every day a new tax is levied - a new rule enforced - without our consent! The Revenue Act. The Indemnity Act. The Commissioners of Customs Act. Oh, Chancellor Townshend must have thought himself so clever when he papered these thefts and made them law. But the Constitution says we've a right to refuse! That there will be no taxation without representation! Tell me - who represented us in Parliament? Spoke on our behalf? Signed in our stead? Give me a name! Only you can't! And do you know why? You can't tell me who represented us because nobody did!"
"And why do we have to pay for the war anyway? It was British Troops that fought the French and Indians, they wouldn't let our militia do anything. We were ignored and wiped away when there was war, but suddenly the king remembers us when the bill comes due? How is that fair?"
"I've been reading from that man Adams. The more I read the more it makes sense."
"Don't tell me you fancy yourself a Son of Liberty? They're nothing more than radicals!"
"Ah, but they've been right, haven't they? Doesn't that give them merit to listen to what they have to say?"
"They're the ones that sacked Hutchinson's house. I'm surprised he accepted the governorship after that."
"You can't blame him for everything. We were all rioting when the Stamp Act came down. And Sam Adams wanted legitimate resistance, not mobs; he was the one that organized the boycotts, he's the one who created the petitions. He's a reformer, not a radical."
"Says you."
"What are you, a Tory? Are you going to forgive the king for every policy he institutes with a bland wave of his hand without any say so from us? How is that fair?"
"I'm not saying it's fair..."
Ratonhnhaké:ton understood the words, he followed the conversation, but he did not understand it. Was this the shock of culture Achilles spoke of? Regardless, he had found a shop labeled "General Store," and he stepped in.
Inside were shelves upon shelves of material, metal objects that Ratonhnhaké:ton could not imagine the use of, bags of things, jars of others, muskets stacked neatly on a rack that terrified him; he felt anxiety again, and he looked around, trying to figure out what to do next.
"You lost?"
He turned to see a man, broad shoulders and weathered face, stand behind a tall counter.
Ah... what was the next instruction?
"My name is Ra—My name is Connor," he said. "I am a new apprentice of Achilles Davenport."
"Ah!" the man said, his face brightening. "About time the old man took on new help. I was beginning to think he'd sworn off farmhands all together after his leg was injured. He needs the help at his age. You here to resupply?"
"Yes," Ratonhnhaké:ton said. "I need the items on this list." He handed over the paper.
"Will you be paying with coin or trade?"
Ratonhnhaké:ton pulled out the bag of coins the old man had given him and dumped them on the counter.
The man stared openly, before taking his hands and shoving the coins into a pile. "Are you a simpleton?" he asked, incredulous. Ratonhnhaké:ton had never heard the word simpleton before. Did it have something to do with the word simple? "No self-respecting trader shows exactly how much money he has with another trader!" He sighed, spinning the list around and studying it. "Some of these things I have. Some I don't. Lumber's hard to come by since my supplier up and vanished. Redcoats billeted his house I'm told. I have the tools and pitch, though. Nails too. I can give you the foodstuffs now. Where do you want this delivered?" Slowly, he pulled out coins from the pile, shifting back and forth until he had the right amount.
"Our wagon is near the State House," Ratonhnhaké:ton said, taking the remaining coins and putting them back in the pouch. He tucked it inside his coat. "Is there anything more that you need of me?"
"By God, no," the man said. "A boy green as you is likely to get killed by the end of the year. You can tell the Old Man I wish him good luck."
Author's Notes: Whew, another heavy, heavy, HEAVY exposition dump in this chapter. (It will die down eventually, we promise...) There's not much to say as yet for Ratonhnhake:ton because we're following the game pretty lock-step at this point. This is Ratonhnhake:ton as his most naive, struggling to learn about the intricacies of white culture and understand the suddenly huge world that he's a part of. It doubles not only as exposition for Ratonhnhake:ton but also for readers to learn of Ratonhnhake:ton's mindset. He references Kanien'keha:ka culture in outlining his ideals and lifestyle in juxtaposition of the white world. Most of it is either explained in text or in that last chapter and its author's notes.
Two things might have slipped by though: First. Even Ratonhnhake:ton doesn't realize it, but both William Johnson and Charles Lee were mentioned in this chapter by their Haudenosaunee names. (props to anyone who noticed them!). Second: Mourning Wars. Part of the Haudenosaunee tradition was to, when a child was killed, recoup the loss by taking a child of the enemy tribe. It is believed that this is part of the reason the Haudenosaunee survived so long and were so hearty, they were constantly integrating fresh blood from other tribes. It was obviously considered kidnapping in European circles and a source of much trouble over the years.
We're also starting to dip into the politics of the day. The eleven-year-old that died in the Boston Gazette is widely considered the spark that started, er, well, events next chapter, and the reader, as well as Ratonhnhake:ton, is a little lost as to what all these fights are. Oh, Americans will recognize names like Tories and Chancellor Townshed, and maybe even Royal Governor Hutchinson, but not with the depth necessary to know what's coming up. More on politics in the next chapter.
Also, though Ratonhnhake:ton doesn't recognize it, he also witnessed a slave auction. As much as we New Englanders pride ourselves in not being racist, that's not completely true. We had slaves and slave auctions just as much as the South; it was only that slavery was not economically sound in the north, because New England farmland couldn't feasibly spread out into giant plantations like the South. Our winters are longer and way colder, and New England was better suited for industry: ship making, factories, etc.
And, as a recurring theme, because Achilles says that Ratonhnhake:ton can pass as Spanish or Italian, he won't always be recognized as a Native American. And now he has a sparkly European name: Connor. Wonder how long it will take for him to get used to it...
Next chapter: Blood in March snow, aka seeing Haytham Kenway for the first time. I'm sure this will go well.